Institut Ramon LLull

When we first meet Boulder, she has left her native Barcelona and she is working as a cook on a merchant ship in the Sea of Chiloè, enjoying a fabulous freedom. She feels able to renounce anything in order to escape from the prison of a life mapped out according to some cookie-cutter storyline. Onboard, she lets herself be carried along, riding out the perfect wave. Then she meets a woman in port, Samsa, who will give her her weighty nickname and lead her to Reykjavik to begin a more conventional existence. Boulder is immediately uncomfortable with her new life on land, and as the years go by, she is confronted with Samsa’s desire to have a child. She accepts Samsa’s “monstrous” new project begrudgingly, which colonizes everything and exiles Boulder.

The story is entirely explained through Boulder’s perspective, with high-impact and poetic descriptions and in such a way that readers will be drawn into her inexorable, excruciating decision-making process, often returning to reread and savor the harsh beauty of her musings. This is a startlingly honest look at what it means to be true to oneself as a woman, the consequences of the choices we make and an exploration of what we do for love.